Por Raúl H. Pérez Navarrete
La imagen es muy sencilla: se trata de un rostro femenino de rasgos infantiles, de piel blanca, cabellos negros adornados con una rosa y de cuyos grandes ojos brotan lágrimas de sangre. Es una de tantas imágenes que deambulan por la red y aparece con frecuencia en blogs y sitios sobre la subcultura gótica.
Hace relativamente poco me topé en internet con la página de su creador: Mark Ryden. El título de la obra, un óleo, es “Rose”, y pertenece a una serie titulada Blood.
El hallazgo me llevó a un grupo de artistas plásticos pertenecientes al movimiento llamado Lowbrow art o surrealismo pop. Sus antecedentes cercanos se encuentran en el arte underground californiano de finales de la década de los años 70 (Kustom kulture, comix, punk rock), aunque sus raíces se extienden hasta los movimientos de vanguardia de principios del siglo XX. Es así que un particular sentido del humor y elementos de la cultura pop se mezclan en imágenes desconcertantes y en ocasiones grotescas en las que no son raros los personajes de dibujos animados, cómics y programas de TV, monstruos del cine y elementos del mundo infantil como juguetes y cuentos de hadas.
Cuando algunos alumnos me preguntan cuál es el estilo artístico predominante en la actualidad, la única respuesta que se me ocurre es la que me proporcionó el maestro Jorge Cortés cuando le formulé la misma cuestión: “vivimos en una época de hibridismo”. En cierta forma, el lowbrow art, con su mezcla de arte pop, kitsch y surrealismo, ejemplifican esta afirmación.
Pop Surrealism: The Rise Of Underground Art, editado por Kirsten Anderson.
Galería
Snuff Fink (1987), óleo sobre lienzo, 36 x 30 pulgadas.
The Ecstacy of Cecelia (1998), óleo sobre lienzo, 26 x 31 pulgadas.
Girl Eaten by Tree (2006), óleo sobre lienzo, 12.75 x 19.75 pulgadas
Christina (1998), óleo sobre lienzo, 17 x 10 pulgadas.
Five O'clock shadows in Disney-Dali land (1996), acrílico sobre lienzo, 30 x 40 pulgadas.
The evolution of superstition (2003), acrílico sobre lienzo, 30 x 24 pulgadas.
Into the valley of Finks and weirdos (2002), óleo sobre lienzo, 60 x 84 pulgadas.
Clash of holidays (2000), óleo sobre lienzo, 40 X 30 pulgadas.
Wish (2003), óleo sobre bandeja de estaño, 12 x 16 pulgadas.
Dirtyland 4 life (2010), técnica mixta sobre de tabla de arce, 18 x 24 pulgadas.
Blue bunny (2007), resina, espuma y pintura acrílica, 14 x 18 x 6 pulgadas.
The escape (2008), óleo sobre madera, 12x 20 pulgadas.
Videotape (2008), óleo y técnica mixta, 24 x 24 pulgadas.
Otros artistas
2 comentarios:
Es verdaderamente impresionante el trabajo de estos artistas. Gracias por acercárnoslos.
Tengo una curiosidad que quizás puedas satisfacer: Por qué esa presencia de la carne en Mark Ryden?
Muy agradecida.
Hola, Frida,gracias por tu comentario; el mismo Mark Ryden comenta sobre esta serie. Saludos:
Artist Statement - "Meat" - October 2001
I've been asked over and over why I paint meat. I suppose I have to admit one of the reasons I like to paint meat is because people do wonder about it so much. There are actually many reasons.
We are creatures of pure energy and "Meat" is the element that keeps us here. I think about how "Meat" was once part of a beautiful living creature that has then become an inanimate "substance" that we treat with little regard or awareness of what it once was. It was once alive. Recently the Austrian artist Flatz made the news when he dropped a dead cow from a helicopter in Berlin. I don't care much for this kind of "shock" art but there was a very interesting part of the story. An animal loving teenager attempted to legally stop the performance. The court rejected the complaint because the cow had the legal status of food. That fascinates me. At what exact point does the animal cross the line and become meat?
From the Bible, Matthew 26:26 "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat; this is my body." I have found this Bible verse the source of much curiosity. It is a bizarre ritual Catholics partake in each Sunday as they eat the body of Christ in communion. The literal interpretation of this can be the source of endless visuals from the humorous to the horrific.
There is an obvious horror connected with the meat industry: the blood, the gore, the inhumane butchery. So many of us indirectly participate in this with our ravenous consumption of meat. Sue Coe has explored that arena exquisitely in her work and writings. In my own art I am not personally making a statement or judgment about the meat consumption in our culture. I feel more like I am just observing it. Just like T-rex, I myself am a passionate meat-eater. I feel that the consumption of animal flesh is a natural primal instinct, just like sex and making paintings. But there is that paradox of knowing how that scrumptious porterhouse made it to my dinner plate. We have lost any kind of reverence for this. It would be interesting if people would have to kill an animal themselves before they earned the right to eat it.
Beyond the conceptual impact, meat simply has a very strong visual quality. The wonderful variety of textures and patterns in the marbling of the meat is sumptuous. Subtle pinks gently swirl around with rich vermillions and fatty yellow ochres. These visual qualities alone are seductive enough to make meat the subject of a work of art. Meat is glorious to paint. It is so easy to transcend the representational to the abstract. Meat has been a subject for painters from Rembrandt to Van Gogh.
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